


hopelessness has done nothing for me

by ohallows



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (it's just a coda to episode 80 where hamid and sasha are able to rest, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21865984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohallows/pseuds/ohallows
Summary: Everything feels… numb. Panicked and numb, which shouldn’t go together but somehow does. The room’s too quiet, and too still, and Hamid wants to scream, wants to break something, but he knows it won’t help, will only cause a mess to clean up later, and. And.He wants Zolf to come back, to tell them what to do. He wants to find out what Kafka cast on him to turn him into that. He wants Bertie to be back, as terrible and awful as he was. He wants Sasha to be okay. He wants Grizzop to stop antagonising the cult members. He wants Wilde to tell him what’s really going on instead of playing all his cards close to his chest. He wants to go home, he wants to not have to deal with this anymore. He - he...He wants his sister to not be dead.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan & Sasha Racket
Comments: 7
Kudos: 67
Collections: Cowards Holiday Exchange 2019





	hopelessness has done nothing for me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AsexualArchivist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsexualArchivist/gifts).



> HAPPY HOLS ELLIE I HOPE YOU ENJOY AAAA!!!!!!
> 
> au where alex lets them rest before they go off to find liliana. also i don’t love the prague arc and haven’t relistened to twig my memory so if something is wrong call it artistic license lol
> 
> working title: [hamid voice] everything happens so much

The Cult of Mars is unfriendly and off-putting and do _not_ seem to like any of them. They especially don’t seem to like Wilde, which Hamid’s starting to realise is a standard reaction to anyone who interacts with Wilde, so that particular connection hasn’t helped their case with the cult members. At some point, all of them are pulled into a room and questioned about what they know: about Kafka, about the other professors, about the Harlequins, the zombies, the fear spell, the _book_ … anything and everything they seem to be able to come up with. 

The interrogations end so late into the night that it might as well be early; none of them would believe that Hamid and his friends had nothing to do with the events, beyond trying to stop them. They kept asking the same questions over and over and over and _over_ and refused to let up, as though by continuing to press them one of them would finally reveal that they’d been the evil mastermind all along. 

By the time they’re finally free to go, Hamid is… tired. It’s a bone-deep exhaustion, dragging at him until he can barely keep moving forward. Taking every step is an effort, as they walk down the hallway as a silent group. Grizzop seems like he wants to say something, opening his mouth for a moment before looking away from Hamid. 

It’s fine. He doesn’t really want to speak anyway. His entire body hurts in ways that he’s unfamiliar with; maybe waking up after the catacombs in Paris was the only time he’s been this sore, but he feels… wrong. As though his body’s been twisted and stretched in a way it shouldn’t, almost like he’s stuck in something too small to contain himself now, too confined. It’s not the most pleasant feeling in the world, but Hamid doesn’t have time to deal with it, not when - 

He sighs to himself, pinching at the bridge of his nose. It’s hard to believe all this has gone on in, well, about a day, at this point. They just haven’t had a break, racing against time and fate and everything else thrown in front of them as they try to figure this mystery out. Hamid doesn’t think they’ve even learned much about the simulacrum at this point, even if Mr. Ceiling had shown some… unsettlingly similar tendencies. It’s, well. It’s hard to care about any of that, right now. 

Bertie is dead. Aziza is dead. Kafka cast… something on him, except Hamid is starting to get worried that maybe it wasn’t turning him into something as much as it was bringing out something that’s already there. 

They’re lucky he didn’t run off, that people in the crowd saw what happened and could tell his friends, that he was just up on the roof screaming his anguish and pain into the sky where no one could hear him. This is something he’ll have to deal with, someday, but he doesn’t… he _can’t._ Not now. So much has happened, so quickly, and he can’t separate it or deal with any of it, so it’s getting pushed down further into his brain until he has the space for it. 

Healthy? Probably not, but he doesn’t think he has a lot of options right now. He feels like he hasn’t slept in weeks, and being held captive and _ignored_ and _belittled_ by the Cult of Mars hadn’t done anything to make him feel more on top of things. His head is a mess of tangled and twisting thoughts, all battling for more attention, and he doesn’t want to do anything apart from _sleep_ , but he doesn’t even think that will be afforded to him. 

They’re supposed to go look for Liliana in the morning, a reunion that Hamid isn’t particularly looking forward too based on how they left things. Maybe this is a second chance for him; maybe he can convince her that he isn’t all bad, that it wasn’t his fault. 

Maybe they can - no, probably not for the best, after all. They’re - _he’s_ a different person, now, and it’s only been about eight months since they’d last seen each other, but Hamid feels completely changed. He’s had to grow up a lot, after… everything. After university. After breaking the world. 

It still hurts to think about it like that, and even though doesn’t think that it was the wrong decision, not like Zolf did, it’s… complicated.

Gods. Everything is complicated. Hamid rather thought adventuring would be - well, not easier than this, but with less _grey_. He wanted to be a hero. Wanted to save the world. And they’ve done it, sure, but they’ve… lost people, along the way. Made some mistakes. Maybe he had a bit of rose-colored glasses on when he first joined the London Rangers (We’re still… etc.) and saw the opportunity to make up from some errors of his past. 

Maybe he should have been more realistic from the jump. He supposes it’s too late for that now. Just have to… keep plugging forward. Keep helping others, doing anything he can.

Grizzop peels off eventually, heading down a hallway to his own room with a muttered promise to see them tomorrow. They’ll have to keep on with the mission, get answers to the questions that seem to keep piling up. It feels like for every one mystery they solve, five more pop up in its place. 

Tomorrow. A problem for tomorrow. 

They reach Hamid’s room before long as well, and Sasha hesitates outside with him, even as he fumbles around for his key. 

“Oi, Hamid, do you -“ Sasha starts, offer open and heartfelt in her own awkward way, and Hamid wishes he could tell her how much he appreciates her in a way that doesn’t use words. She still looks rough, face too pale and dark circles under her eyes, and they need to find out what’s going on with her and make sure she’s not… Hamid doesn’t even know. But that’s another thing on an already long list, and Hamid doesn’t much care what Wilde has to say about it, Sasha’s problems will rocket to the top of the list. 

He’s not losing anyone else. 

“It’s alright, Sasha,” he says, giving her a faint smile. They’ve never been the closest on the team; it can be hard when you’re coming from two such drastically different backgrounds, but the past few days have given the chance to grow closer. Hamid just… just can’t, right now. 

“I’d just like to be alone, if that’s alright?” he says, hand already on the doorknob behind him. He knows Sasha isn’t trying to intrude, is just attempting to comfort him in her own way, and Hamid does appreciate it, really, but he would rather not break down into tears in the middle of this hallway. He doesn’t think she completely buys it, but she’s nice enough to not push on the obvious cracks in his facade. 

Sasha pauses, half turned away, and then spins on her heel quickly and leans in, giving Hamid a brief, tight squeeze of a hug. He doesn’t get a chance to hug her back before she’s gone, heading down the hallway to her own room. Probably for the best, that; if he had hugged back he would most likely have started crying on her, and Sasha would have hated it. It’s fine. She doesn’t - she doesn’t need to make herself uncomfortable for him, it’s not her fault Hamid grew up with five siblings who never stopped hugging him. 

Four, now, he realizes, and can feel his heart sink through the floor once more. With shaking hands, he opens the door to his room and steps across the threshold. The door shuts behind him, and he’s alone. It’s quiet, in his room. Still, in a way his head hasn’t been since they landed in Prague and Zolf made the decision to split up for all of them. 

He doesn’t. He doesn’t know what to do, now. Everything feels… numb. Panicked and numb, which shouldn’t go together but somehow _does._ The room’s too quiet, and too still, and Hamid wants to scream, wants to break something, but he knows it won’t _help_ , will only cause a mess to clean up later, and. And.

He wants Zolf to come back, to tell them what to do. He wants to find out what Kafka cast on him to turn him into that. He wants Bertie to be back, as terrible and awful as he was. He wants Sasha to be okay. He wants Grizzop to stop antagonising the cult members. He wants Wilde to tell him what’s really going on instead of playing all his cards close to his chest. He wants to go _home_ , he wants to not have to deal with this anymore. He - he...

He wants his _sister_ to not be _dead._

He and Aziza are - _had been -_ close. There was always a bit too much of an age difference between him and Saleh for them to truly bond, and him and Saira got along well. The twins were too young; obviously Hamid loved them both dearly, but there was always something special between him and Aziza. They looked so alike, Hamid used to be mistaken as her twin brother (something that made him feel better as he was going through his transition) and Aziza used to love it as well, before telling whoever it was that he was her favorite little brother (another endearment that warmed his heart). 

Changing into his pyjamas is done robotically, hands going through the motions even as Hamid feels like he’s slowly shutting down. He brushes his teeth and lets his prestidigitation fall; the dark circles under his eyes become more pronounced, his hair becomes a little more lifeless as his curls fall into his eyes, his nude lipstick fades away, his eyeliner vanishes, and he’s stuck staring into a mirror at someone he barely recognizes. 

The Hamid of seven or eight months ago wouldn’t know who this was. His cheeks are more sallow, more defined, and there’s a strange quality to the skin right around his eyes that hasn’t gone away since whatever Kafka cast on him made him transform. He looks… he looks exhausted. Older, both physically and mentally. It’s - he doesn’t know what to think about it. He closes his eyes and leans forward, forehead thunking against the cool glass of the mirror as he tries to keep it together. His breath is shuddering and hitching as he feels the sobs building in his throat, and then it’s like a faucet’s been turned, and he’s crying, loud, heaving sobs as his knuckles turn white where he holds tightly to the sink. His head hurts. His _heart_ hurts. Everything is just - everything is bad and wrong again, and he wasn’t able to stop any of it, and people keep leaving and he’s terrified that it’s his _fault_ and he doesn’t -

He doesn’t know what to _do._

The clock on the wall ticks by slowly as he cries, until his throat hurts and his eyes are tired and he slowly quiets; there’s still a gaping hole in his chest where his heart was, but he doesn’t think he can cry anymore over it. He’s tired, and upset, and broken, and he just wants to sleep. Sleep until everything’s okay again, ideally, but they don’t have that option. Not anymore. 

He straightens up and splashes some cold water on his face, pressing his fingertips against the bridge of his nose as he takes a steadying breath. He needs to sleep. Needs to be ready to go for tomorrow, which is much too close already. He dabs a towel around his face and sighs, wishing he could just turn his brain off for once. 

There’s a knock on his door and Hamid sniffles again, wiping carefully at his eyes as he snaps his fingers to hide the tear stains and fix the wrinkles on his shirt. 

“One moment!” he calls, trying to hide the roughness of his voice; he’s not sure if he’s successful, but it’s the best he’s able to do at the moment. He pulls his robe off of a nearby chair and wraps it around himself, padding quietly over to the door and opening it. 

Sasha is standing outside, in similar pyjamas to his, although he’s sure her’s have a few sharp additions. She doesn’t look particularly comfortable, and Hamid thinks he can almost detect a hint of embarrassment in her face even as she averts her eyes. 

“Sasha? Something wrong?” he asks, opening the door wider.

“Can’t sleep,” Sasha says, and it’s less curt and more tired than anything else. “Don’t like being alone.” 

Oh. “Do you - do you want to come in?” Hamid asks, and steps aside. Sasha nods, short, and follows him inside. He closes the door gently behind her, hand resting on the cool metal for maybe a moment longer than necessary before he turns around again. Sasha’s standing there with her shoulders hunched, hands in her pockets, as she looks anywhere but at Hamid. 

It’s an awkward silence between two people who have shared life or death situations but who don’t really know that much about where the other comes from. Hamid shuffles his feet a bit while Sasha just stands still, fists clenching and unclenching slowly. 

“Are you alright, Sasha?” Hamid asks, and immediately kicks himself. Of course she’s not, of _course_ neither of them are alright, haven’t been for a while. He’s surprised to hear Sasha give a low chuckle, completely devoid of humor, and then she finally looks at him, and she just seems… lost. 

“No, Hamid, er - no, I’m not alright,” she says, and her voice is heavy with the weight of all the tears left unshed. “We just - we keep _losing_ people.”

Hamid swallows heavily. “I -“

“It’s just - it’s not _fair_ , yeah? We save the world, but we lose someone. I didn’t even like Bertie that much,” Sasha says, frowning. “But I’m - he was still a constant. First Zolf leaves. Then Bertie…” she trails off. 

Hamid knows. Bertie had been an old university friend, and as terrible as he was, there’s still a… _gap_ where he used to be. Sizeable. There’s a gap where Zolf was, too, and a gap where his _sister_ lived, even if he didn’t see her often. It’s a hole that _hurts,_ a ragged wound that hasn’t healed, and Hamid isn’t sure it ever will. 

“I don’t - I don’t want to lose anyone else, Sasha, I -“ Hamid says eventually, cutting himself and presses his hand to his mouth, blocking the sobs rising up in his throat. He’s been trying so _hard_ to keep it together in front of everyone else, trying not to show how much this has been dragging at him, the weight it’s left on his shoulders. His chest heaves, but there are no tears left for him to shed, and he’s just left hewn open, a husk with a heart burning away in the middle.

Sasha doesn’t say anything, but he can see the way her eyes are gleaming in the firelight, and the tears forming at the corners. 

“I don’t either,” she says, hoarse, and somehow looks even smaller, even paler, dark circles under her eyes as pronounced as ever. She almost looks like a wraith, like a ghost, and Hamid wants to reach out to her. To ground himself, maybe. To make sure she’s still real. He’s halfway through the motion when he remembers, oh, Sasha doesn’t like touch, and converts it into an aborted, awkward brush through his hair.

“It feels like all the threads are being pulled loose,” he murmurs, sitting down on the couch. His legs feel weak, and he’s so goddamn _tired_ after dealing with… everything. He rests his head in his hands, fingers digging into his temples as he closes his eyes. 

The couch shifts next to him and he peers through his fingers to see Sasha sitting at the other end, feet tucked up underneath herself as she perches there. They’re both silent, for a moment. Hamid doesn’t really know what to say; Sasha doesn’t seem all that inclined to speak first either. 

The clock ticks by slowly. It’s dark in the room, and silent, and Hamid thinks he could fall asleep there, the exhaustion an ever-present thought in his mind. It would be so easy, to succumb to the darkness, to stop thinking, even for a moment. But he knows it won’t make the pain go away; it will still be there in the morning.

So they sit there, together, two battle-hardened soldiers who never knew that this would be the outcome. Didn’t know, first setting out, that joining up with a mercenary company would be… this. This hard, sometimes. 

Hamid had always wanted to be a hero. He still does. He’s just… not sure of the cost, anymore. 

“I’m so sorry about your sister, Hamid,” Sasha says eventually, and it’s quiet and regretful, and Hamid realizes she just lost someone too. Maybe not _just_ , but the loss is the same, just as strong and debilitating.

“I - yeah, she -“ Hamid says, and the pain _flares_ again, a broken knife’s edge, jagged and sharp. “She didn’t deserve it.”

Sasha nods, short and jerky, and doesn’t look at him. 

“I’m sorry about your cousin. I’m sorry we couldn’t save him,” he says, speaking around a lump in his throat, and he’s sorry he hasn’t said it earlier.

“Yeah, me - me too,” Sasha says. “Shouldn't be surprised, he’s been missing for years, but. Doesn’t seem fair.”

It’s not. The world _isn’t_ fair, never has been. It wouldn’t have taken Brock away from Sasha, taken the one person she trusted from her like that. It wouldn’t have snuffed out Aziza’s flame much too soon; she was too bright, too beautiful, too talented… she didn’t deserve it. 

None of them did.

“Can - would you want to tell me about Brock?” Hamid asks, turning to face Sasha on the couch. Her face is nearly unreadable as she stares ahead; Hamid thinks she might be a bit taken aback at him asking, but eventually some of the tension goes out of her shoulders. 

“Alright,” she says, quiet, and leans back against the arm of the couch, wrapping her arms around her knees as she stares over at Hamid. “We were cousins. Not by… by blood or anything, I don’t think Barrett actually had kids of his own, but. All the kids in the family called each other cousins. He was a few years younger than me.

“He was, er - he were good. Never one for the streets, Brock. He were good at it, yeah, kept himself alive until, well. Until Barrett decided he shouldn’t be. You, er - kind of know that bit. Shipped off to Paris, brain in the machine…” she says, trailing off, and Hamid nods.

“He saved us, in there,” Hamid murmurs. “You know? He told me to come back. Told me to protect you.”

A tear slips down her cheek as Sasha nods. “He - he always tried to protect me. Didn’t matter that he was younger or smaller. We - we had to protect each other, down there.

“There was - er, there was one time where Brock needed to pull off a grift and needed my help, and I made him promise to give me half of the goods if it all went off without a hitch. Brock, he completely flubbed it, made an absolute mess of himself, but we still got the goods, and he gave me half, like he promised.” She laughs, then, tight, and plays with a loose thread in the couch. “Didn’t find out ‘til years later that he gave me the lot of it. Didn’t keep anything for himself.”

“He really cared about you,” Hamid says, and he can feel tears in the corners of his eyes as well. 

“We were family,” Sasha says, softer than Hamid’s ever heard her before, lost in memories of maybe not a better place, but a better time. “Had to. Wanted to.”

“I’m - I wish you’d been able to talk to him again,” Hamid says. 

“Yeah. Sort of did in the simulation, but it - it wasn’t the same,” Sasha finishes, surreptitiously wiping at her eyes as she sniffles a bit. At some point, she’d shifted on the couch, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Hamid. Hamid reaches out, hand hovering above her shoulder, waiting for her nod before he touches her, squeezing gently. She leans into it a bit, which he wasn’t expecting, but he supposes everyone needs comfort sometimes. 

He leans into her a bit too, when she doesn’t protest, a small comfort and offer of solidarity. Hamid won’t leave her. Ever. 

The silence still encapsulates the room, all but for the ticking of the clock, but it feels… less, somehow. Less oppressive, less… dark. Having Sasha there, as quiet as she is, helps. Helps more than Hamid thought. 

“Tell me about your sister?” Sasha offers in return, and Hamid smiles through the tears as he thinks about her, thinks about her laugh and her smile and how tightly she would hug him when she saw him. 

“Aziza and I were always close, I’m not sure if it’s because we were so similar or because I was the baby of the family for so long…” he trails off, phantom memories of laughter and shouts of indignation from a childhood long since gone echoing around his mind. “Saira always used to complain, say I loved Aziza more than her. It wasn’t true, of course, but, well. Aziza and I understood each other, more so than the others.”

“She has a beautiful singing voice,” Sasha offers, and Hamid nods. 

“She always knew she’d be a star. Mother and Father paid for so many singing lessons for her, but she was always magical. When we were younger, she used to sing me to sleep? I had nightmares a lot, and her room was right next door to mine. She’d sneak into mine and sing a bit, and the nightmares would go away.”

He can still hear the tune of all of them, of Aziza’s voice lilting through the notes, can still see her cuddled up next to him as he shook through the tremors of a nightmare best left unremembered. The nightmares ended as he got older, but Aziza would still sing to him, on his birthday, at family gatherings, when he was sad, when he was happy… she was like a bright light, shining on the rest of them. 

“Thank you, Sasha,” Hamid says, sincere, and she looks at him, a bit confused.

“For what?” 

“Talking. This… this helped,” he explains, and Sasha blushes a bit around the cheeks as she averts her gaze.

“Yeah. Er. You too. Thanks, Hamid,” she says, quiet, and Hamid leans back on the couch, tucked neatly against a pillow. 

They’ve both lost. So much. They have to keep each other safe - and Grizzop, too, who’s wormed his way into their little found family. He’s one of them, now. And Hamid will protect both of them with his life, if need be.

“Do you want to go back to your room?” Hamid asks, and he’ll respect her decision either way, but he really doesn’t want her to leave. Doesn’t want to be all alone in this too-empty, too-quiet room, with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. 

Sasha must be thinking along similar lines. She hunches down further into the couch and shakes her head. “Not particularly. S’loud.”

“Your room…?” Hamid asks, trailing off, but Sasha just shakes her head again. 

“My brain.”

Hamid can relate. He can’t shut his off either, can’t push out the memories and the grief and the _guilt_. There’s something else there as well, something nagging at the back of his head that almost _itches_ , and he doesn’t want to think about whatever the hell happened when Kafka cast the spell on him. He has thoughts, suspicions, but… they can wait for the day to come. 

“You’re welcome to stay,” Hamid offers, and Sasha stretches a bit on the couch.

“Might do,” she says, and Hamid lets his eyes slip shut as she settles in. He should really move to the bed; his neck might hurt in the morning, but nothing magic can’t fix. And Sasha is a comforting presence on the other end of the couch. Maybe he’ll just rest his eyes for a moment, and then curl up under the covers. 

—

He wakes up the next morning to a pounding on the door, followed swiftly by Grizzop’s voice yelling for him to get up. He sits up blearily and stretches, before noticing Sasha curled up on the other end of the couch, feet tucked under his thighs as she sleeps silently. Grizzop pounds on the door again and Sasha wakes with a start, knife in her hand that she must have pulled from _somewhere_ , but it’s quickly stashed away when she recognizes Hamid on the other end of the couch. 

“Oi!” Grizzop yells yet again, muffled through the door. “We’ve got people to find! Up and at ‘em, Hamid!” 

Sasha flinches a bit at the yelling, but hides it well. 

“Be right there, Grizzop!” Hamid calls back, a bit quieter than him, and he can hear Grizzop sigh loudly on the other side. 

“Meet me back at the offices, alright?” Grizzop says, and Hamid calls back a confirmation before he hears Grizzop hurrying away. 

The room is silent again as Sasha and Hamid stand there, but it doesn’t feel as vast, as inescapable. The sunlight is filtering in through the stained glass windows, colors shimmering around the room as Hamid walks over to the cabinets and begins rifling through for some new clothes for the day ahead. 

“Are you going to be okay?” Hamid asks, more of a rhetorical question than anything else. He knows neither of them are okay, knows it’ll take more than a late-night conversation to start healing the holes in their hearts. Sasha still shrugs. 

“No,” she says, more honest than Hamid had expected from her. There’s a wry twist to the curve of her lips as she stares off into the distance. “I will be. Have to be, yeah?”

Hamid knows what she means. He pats her on the shoulder, a light touch that she doesn’t shrug off. 

“I’ll meet you and Grizzop in a moment,” she says, hands stuck deep in her pockets as she heads over to the door. Hamid makes a slight noise of agreement and Sasha slips out of his room, as quiet as a ghost.

The room is empty again. Quiet, apart from the steady ticking of the clock from the corner. Hamid sighs, deep, and rests his head in his hands, pressing at the bridge of his nose.

The pain is… he doesn’t think it’ll ever go away. It might get smaller, might get more manageable, but it’ll always be there. His sister is dead. His sister will always be dead. He’ll constantly have to remind himself, constantly have to reshape his own world to this reality. It’s - grief was never meant to be _easy_ to understand, to cope with. Grief rips and pulls and _hurts_ and breaks you down, but you have to rise above it, have to move past it before it can drown you. It gets better, in time, but it’s never becomes _easy_ to deal with. And they’ve had so much of it recently, so _godsdamned_ much, but… Hamid will learn to deal with it. He has to. 

All he - all _they_ can do is keep moving forward, keep fighting to save the world. He knows it’s what Aziza would have wanted, at least. 

It’s a new day, and Bertie and Aziza are still dead. Hamid snaps his fingers and casts prestidigitation, and the redness in his eyes vanishes along with the bags under them. The thought of Aziza is a punch in his gut, a weight that he’s constantly aware of, but he’s going to move forward, going to keep fighting. 

It’s all he can do.

**Author's Note:**

> ANYWHO if i think abt this fic in the context of the end of s3 i Will have a mental breakdown so we are!!! not doing that!!!! this really turned into an exploration of grief as well (tl;dr personal shit happened and this lowkey became a vent fic) 
> 
> sorry ellie u said you wanted sad so i give you sad but also hopefully comfort !!
> 
> kudos and comments always appreciated and hmu on connerkcnt on tumblr or cvnnerkent on twitter where i talk all rqg all the time :D


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